


Blood is New Blood

by Ivegotaheadlineforyou



Series: Blood & Promises [1]
Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Angst, Based on a Poem, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eurydice gets left behind, F/M, Memory Loss, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivegotaheadlineforyou/pseuds/Ivegotaheadlineforyou
Summary: “You’ll thank me one day,” she whispered, rocking her back and forth as the young girl’s sobs shook her frame. “I promise that you’ll see him again, Eurydice. I promise.”***Eurydice is left behind. She's got a long time to wait.





	Blood is New Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I promise that more fluff is coming soon, but I needed to get this out of my head.  
> This is based on a series of poems by CardiaMachina on tumblr called 'Seventy Years of Sleep'.
> 
> unbeta'd because im lazy (whoops).
> 
> Hadestown belongs to Anaïs Mitchell, gods bless her soul.

_I’ve changed my love._

 

_I am constantly changing_

_The way blood is new blood_

_Every hundred and ten days._

 

_I’ve changed from a year ago,_

_I’ve changed from a second ago._

 

_This is my greatest fear indeed —_

_that i love a man_

_who only loves me_

_Seventy years back._

 

_***_

 

They wouldn’t let her forget. 

For better or for worse, they wouldn’t let her forget.

And it hurt. So fucking much.

 

“ _Please,”_ she cried, on her knees in front of the Lady. “ _Please just take away this pain_.” 

It had been mere days since he had left, and all she wanted, what she craved was to have every trace of him removed from her head. From her heart. She didn’t care if she simply became a shell of herself, if she somehow became one with the mines, she needed out of her misery.

“Please, Persephone,” she said through tears, her voice utterly shattered, her eyes red and puffy, tears leaving streaks through the ash on her face. “Make it _stop._ ”

Persephone’s heart had broken before, but nothing like this — nothing like looking at a face painted with agony and knowing that she had been complicit. She felt as though her heart was being splintered open from the inside out, grief and sorrow burrowing into it.

“Oh, Songbird,” she whispered, kneeling down to sit with her. She had no words to sooth her pain. No matter how much she wanted to look this death and loss in the face and press forward, create something new and beautiful, she knew that she couldn’t. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Yes you can,” Eurydice shouted at her through her tears, her voice scratching her throat on the way out. She bared her teeth, allowed her pain to shift into rage, and fear and utter agony to seep out through her words. Her eyes were wild, as she cried out: “You’re the Queen of the Underworld! Just do it! Get him out of my head, _please_.”

Against all of her better judgement, she reached out and pulled the girl into her arms, wrapping her up tight in her grasp. Eurydice was so tired, so very tired. And as soon as she felt the goddess’ arms around her, could feel the life within her radiating from within, she broke down. Persephone held onto her tight, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye, as she cradled the back of her head. 

“You’ll thank me one day,” she whispered, rocking her back and forth as the young girl’s sobs shook her frame. “I promise that you’ll see him again, Eurydice. I promise.”

She didn’t know if Eurydice was listening, or if she could hear her at all, but she needed to say it. 

***

Months later, and Eurydice could still feel him in the back of her head like a bad hangover. She could feel every chord he had ever played vibrating at the base of her skull. His song echoed through her head, bouncing off every surface it could.

She countered it by working harder, until the only thing she could feel were the reverberations of the pickaxe in her hands. The only thing she could hear was her own heartbeat in her ear — loud and angry.

She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want his song in her head anymore. 

She would never hear the real thing again, and her crooked memory of his voice was nothing but a disgusting mockery of it.

***

“You asked to see me?”

Eurydice stood in the doorway of Persephone’s office. She was sat at a big desk, working out all of the paperwork that Hades had neglected over the last six months. She had just returned from her ninth summer above. Nine years Eurydice had been here in Hadestown.

It had not gotten any easier.

Persephone smiled at her, and beckoned her in. “Come in, Songbird. Come sit.” 

She walked in, shutting the door behind her. She looked tired, but not as tired as she had in past years. She also didn’t look drunk. Eurydice, at the one year anniversary of being left behind, started spending too much time at the bar. She started to look like a reflection of Persephone in her worst moments. It wasn’t cute, but Eurydice didn’t care about that anymore. She hoped that the booze would make his voice quieter, make her mind numb. It didn’t but she couldn’t help herself — she kept trying until one day it went quiet. It was still there, but it was softer, barely audible. It triggered something in her head, and when she reached out to grab the song, it alluded her grasp. She couldn’t hear it. And she _needed_ to hear it. Needed to hear him.

She ran out of the bar, gasping for air, reaching for anything that would sober her up. If she was sober the song would come back. She needed it to come back. That’s how Hades found her — curled in a ball at the entrance of one of the mines, pressing her finger nails into the back of her head, into her temples, coming dangerously close to drawing blood, whispering _come back to me, please. Don’t go_. He picked her up in his arms and took her home to his wife. Together, they waited. He fetched water, bread, cool towels. She held her hands away from her head, brushed her hair back, tried to soothe her fearful tears. They waited for her tears to stop, for her to fall asleep. Waited until the grief passed.

She woke up to the soft pounding of _la la la la_ ’s in her head, and she cried out in relief. She stopped drinking after that. Stopped looking for a way to numb the pain. 

Eurydice sat down across from Persephone, her hands folded in her lap. She bit her lip, not wanting to ask the question that Persephone had called her here to ask. She just looked down at her dirty hands, and rubbed at some dirt.

Persephone watched her, the same young girl she had met in the bar that night so many years ago. But she was different. She wasn’t hungry, and she wasn’t young. But gods, was she still so in love.

“He’s doing better,” the goddess spoke softly, deciding to answer the question that hung in the air. Eurydice nodded without looking up. She bit her lip, trying to keep her face from breaking. 

“Has he…” Eurydice started, but her thought petered out. She didn’t know if she could ask the question, didn’t know if she could bear to hear it spoken. But she needed to know. “Has he moved on?”

After she had asked, she wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of — the question, or the answer. She wanted him to be okay, to be in love and be happy. But she was selfish — she wanted her poet, wanted him for herself even if she couldn’t have him.

Persephone was surprised by the question. So much so that she let out a little laugh. Eurydice’s head snapped up, unsure what was funny. “Oh, little Eurydice,” Persephone started, smiling at her with sunshine in her eyes. “Do you really think that that boy will ever fall in love again?”

Persephone continued: “He’s never going to move on, Songbird. He left his heart in Hadestown. He’s just trying to find a way to fill the time until he can come and get it back.”

Eurydice let out a breath, allowed her heart to settle, her stomach to rest. _He was still in love with her_ , she thought. That boy and his heart that knew no bounds. It was the only thing that would keep her alive. 

“He has another letter for you,” Persephone said, pulling an envelope out her bag. Everything in her wanted to reach out and grab that envelope, a single _E_ scratched onto the front of it, but Eurydice shook her head. She had a long wait ahead of her, the goddess knew this. She had a long time to wait, and filling her heart, her head with his words, would do nothing but break her heart again. 

“Not yet,” Eurydice said, blinking back tears. Persephone nodded, and placed it in the bottom drawer of her desk alongside eight more unopened letters.

She wrote him letters too. A note every year, on the anniversary of the walk. Signed, sealed, and addressed, she wrote him a letter and without fail put it in a box in the back of her cupboard. She didn’t actually know if these letters were for him or for her — were they declarations of her love for him, or were they reminders that she could still feel love at all? One of those letters was just a recounting of their first meeting, and how she fell for him the moment he asked her to come home with him. One was a letter filled with anger, and spite, and agony, that she was left behind — that he was tested, and not she. She didn’t know if she ever wanted him to read her letters. 

But his? She would read them one day. Allow herself to fall in love with him all over again and even more than before. One day. But not now.

***

The Hadestown that Eurydice lived in now bore no resemblance to the one that she arrived in close to four decades ago. What was once a place of death, mines strung together with neon lights, was now a functioning factory filled with functioning workers. No longer was Hadestown filled with shades, but workers, people. Communities. People no longer sold themselves to the factory — this was where they came when they had someone to wait for. They signed a contract for a limited amount of time, and when whoever they were waiting for made it down below, they were free to go.

Eurydice was not the same person that she was when she arrived there. She was different, physically too. She now had a noticeable scar running parallel to her left eyebrow — a now smooth white line that she received from a cave collapse about 10 years prior. She was stronger now than she ever had been. Her muscles had filled out, giving her a lean shape, but she still had her curves. 

In all honesty, bodies didn’t truly change in Hadestown. When you arrived, your body was restored to peak physical form, and it stayed that way, only shifting slightly over time. That was something she truly missed. She wished she could have aged gracefully. She wished her hair would grow longer, wished she could feel her skin tan, stretch. The more she thinks about it, the more she wishes she could have grown old.

She thinks sometimes about what he might look like now. _Half a century,_ she thought to herself. She wonders if his hair would have changed. His hair, always messy and soft and choppy. He liked it that way, even if sometimes it stuck up in the mornings. She wonders if his face has creased and how much. What did his hands look like now? Did he ever fill out that slim, lanky frame of his?

Thinking of him now didn’t hurt as much — oh it still hurt, but she craved that pain sometimes. It felt like picking a scab, or like biting into ice. It hurt, yes, but it was a reminder that you were alive. She wasn’t, of course, but that did little to stop her.

He had stopped writing letters, stopped giving Persephone envelopes years ago. There were 37 letters in the box in her desk, all of which had gone unread. The year he stopped writing, she had worked to put him out of her mind. He must be moving on, she thought, and so should she. 

Hadestown was different, yes, but it was still a greedy place — if you let it, it would take things from you. Only the King could restore. It didn’t take her memories, only hid them from view. Like placing coins in a pocket for safe keeping, and forgetting where you put the coat. _I need to let him go_ , she thought to herself. She was trying to be selfless, to give him the freedom from her. She was his dead girlfriend. She had been dead longer than she had been alive. 

She took on extra shifts in the mines, took on extra responsibilities, threw herself into work until all she could remember was the faint whisper of a kiss. She could no longer remember the melody of his song, merely that he sang the word _La_. She didn’t remember his name. _There was a poet_ , she thought, _but that was a long time ago._

_Move on_ , she heard a trio of winds whisper in her mind.

_It’s time._

_Let him go._

Persephone watched from afar as Eurydice’s eyes glazed over. She watched from afar as she slowly lost her mind to the mines. She had been complicit in her heart break, and this was Eurydice’s way of healing herself. Or so she thought. The more she gave away to Hadestown, the less of a person she became. Mindless, she worked. 

She stoped talking, her tongue had no more thoughts to convey, had nothing to give. And Persephone, who still had to face Hermes, still had to face the Poet, still had to face the Upper World, was scared. What would she do when she arrived in the spring? What would she do when she stepped off that train, and had to face the Poet’s eyes, hungry for some kind of comfort? 

“How is she?” He’d always ask — the only time he’d ask about her all summer. He only wanted to know if she was okay, if she was making it through. “She’s doing alright,” Persephone always responded. “She’s waiting,” she’d say. And the Poet would sigh in relief, thank the goddess, and not ask anything more. 

“Hades, I don’t know what to do,” Persephone whispered to him as they lay in bed one night. They only had a week or so left until Spring, and Eurydice was losing herself bit by bit. She was withering away.

“You’ve done everything you can, lover,” he said in that deep voice of his, reaching out to brush her hair away from her face. “You’ve done all you can.” 

After a sleepless night on both of their parts, Hades woke early, and after he pressed a soft kiss to his sleeping wife’s forehead, he asked one of the worker to fetch the Songbird. Bring her to his office. When she arrived, Hades was shocked. He had only ever known the Songbird to be feral, teeth bared and wild. Even as she settled into her role in the mines, there was always the reality that she would bite at any moment. But this… this girl he saw in front of him bore no resemblance. 

“You asked for me?” She said softly, not meeting his eyes.

He brought her in. Sat her down. Offered her a drink — something murky and smooth, served with one ice cube. It smelled like gin and tasted of ash. She didn’t refuse. But after only a sip, he sat and watched her eyes widen. Her mouth open. A mangled scream pull from her throat. 

“What have you done?” she wretched, trying to cough up the liquid — poppy wine and a drop of the Styx. An old remedy to remind one of the glorious pain of living. He knew she was in no pain really — it was all in her head. He couldn’t tell what she was remembering, what moments rang clearly in her mind, but he could guess. 

First kisses, soft touches. Long nights, and late mornings. Cold winters, hot hands, tangled sheets. Mindless kisses and drunken admissions of love.

A trip to the underworld. 

A failed rescue mission.

A box of letters.

A boy with a song.

_la, la la la la la._

She was overwhelmed with images, with scents, with the feeling of too many hands on her body, but with not enough pressure. She felt words bubbling up inside of her. It felt like her mind was melting, giving way to the hot, _hot_ burn of remembering. 

“Orpheus,” she whimpered, calling out to a lover that couldn't hear her. “Orpheus, please make it _stop._ ”

Persephone then, appeared in the doorway. She locked eyes with her husband, a mixture of anger and relief on her face. She ran over to the young girl and took her face in her hands, soothing her, wiping her eyes. Eurydice opened her eyes — red, tear filled eyes — and spoke.

“I don’t want to forget him,” she said through the tears, horrified at herself that she let herself do this. “Persephone, don’t let me forget him.”

***

Persephone was late coming home. She hadn’t stayed up top this late in years — at least in all the time that Eurydice had been here. But the King didn’t seem too bothered. On edge, yes, but not angry. Eurydice didn’t know what to make of it. Late winter, late summer, they would have to make up for it sometime or another, she knew that. But in all her years, in her almost 71 years in Hadestown, Persephone had always come home.

She was lost in thought on her walk to the mines when she was stopped by another worker. They had been there longer than she had, and while Eurydice wouldn’t call any of the workers friends, per say, they were all friendly.

“He wants to see you. At the platform,” they said softly, as to not let the sound echo. She nodded and smiled, hiding her confusion well, and dropping her pickaxe in the pile, she headed to the platform.

She arrived to see not only the King, but Hermes, the train ready for departure. Hades, stood in his sunglasses, waited for her to come closer. 

“You wanted to see me?” she asks, for what felt like the millionth time during her stay in Hadestown. Hermes smiled a wicked little smile, and she felt her level of ease drop out from under her.

“Your poet,” Hades said, taking off his sunglasses, folding them in his hands. “He isn’t doing well. Ain’t gonna make it to the end of the day.” She felt her heart catch in her throat. _No_ , she wanted to say. _Yes,_ she wanted to cry. She had been waiting for him, for so long, but she couldn’t imagine a world without him, couldn’t imagine the Upper World without his vibrance, his voice. Eurydice swallowed around her heart, and nodded.

“What does that mean?” She asked, fully aware that the dead went on, past the borders of Hadestown. The King and Queen lived on the border between underworlds — Hadestown on one side, and on the other side a place she knew nothing of. She never asked because she knew that no one would answer. She had sold her soul to Hades and to his factory, long before the contract lengths had been changed, she knew that. But Orpheus hadn’t sold his. The possibility that even in the afterlife they would be separated was palpable to her, and it was the first thing to scare her in years.

“It means,” he said with a sigh. “That you’ve served your contract, and you’re free to go.”

Eurydice felt her body fill with the shocking adrenaline of gratitude, of relief. Of freedom. Her limbs felt heavy in the best way possible, and in that moment she allowed herself to crave everything she had ignored for years.

“With one last task.”

There was always a caveat with Hades, always a footnote. She steeled herself and looked him dead in the eyes, the fire and ferocity she was known for on full display. “What is it?”

His head jerked towards the train. “My wife is by his side now, hence her absence, but they’ll need a ride home. I’d like you to personally escort them down.”

“You want me to ride up Top?” He half-nodded to her. 

“Not exactly. They’ll meet you halfway, as is customary for the shades — Hermes will take you. I’ve got to be off. Tell Persephone,” he said to Hermes, “To come find me when she gets back. I have business to attend to and can’t meet her this year.” Hermes nodded, and Hades, without so much as looking back, walked away from the platform.

_I’m free_ , Eurydice thought, allowing the beautiful simplicity of the words to drown her. She looked up at Hermes, watched him smile and step to the side, beckoning her onto the train that she had watched come and go for years. Her eyes were filled with so much excitement, that as she stepped onto the train, she almost forgot to be nervous.

The nerves hit though. About halfway to the Upper world, they slammed into her like a ton of bricks. She was no longer the girl who had been left behind. He was no longer the boy she fell in love with. He had lived a full life, had aged naturally above, while she was stuck in limbo down below. He had friends, made music and poetry, and experienced things she never would. And she was not the same person he had left. She was less angry now. She had grown up — she still held a flash of ferocity in her eyes, but she was no longer ready to pounce. She was tired, and ready for some rest.

In the time that they had been apart, she had become a new human hundreds of times. So had he. And her brain swirled with fear that he would take one look at her, and want nothing to do with her. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Hermes said, breaking her out of her revery. She blinked up at him, having almost forgot that he was there. She shook her head, wringing her hands in her lap.

He just smirked at her. “He’s looking forward to this, you know,” he said, glancing at her sideways. “Not death, no. But he’s never seen this moment as death. ‘Mister Hermes’ he said to me, not long ago. ‘I can’t wait to see her again.’ Girl, your poet has always been sentimental like that.”

She smiled softly at Hermes, knowing that he didn’t need her to respond. _Her Poet_ , she thought. _The Poet and his wife_. It didn’t matter that they never really married, not to her Poet. She was always his, and he was always hers. And despite being apart for such an incredibly long time, she prayed that he could learn to love her as she was now. Learn to love the woman she had become.

The train slowed to a stop, and when she looked out the window, she could see a little platform with what looked like a small waiting room attached to it. She was frozen in place, could barely move her chest enough to breathe. She was afraid in this moment that everything would fall apart, and she’d be back in the mines in an instant, sent away without another word. 

But she had come this far.

And now he was only two doors away. 

So, on unsteady feet and with trembling hands, she stood. She walked to the door of the train that Hermes stood next to, and nodded to him once. He nodded back, and with the slightest motion of his wrist, the door opened. She stepped off the train into air that felt fresh but not alive. This truly was a liminal space, a platform in the middle of nowhere, where the dead were collected. 

The door to the small room opened then, and Eurydice’s throat swelled up, she saw Persephone through the door frame, as she opened the door to reveal Orpheus. He looked young, healthy. Part of her wanted to laugh, to assume that they were mocking her, giving her back the exact boy that she had lost. The other part of her wanted her to take just a single step forward.

As she took a step, so did he. And another and another, until they were stood face to face. She looked on the verge of tears, and he had a look of utter disbelief on his face. _My Orpheus_ , she wanted so badly to say, to wrap her arms around his shoulders, and feel his callused fingers against her waist.

“It’s you,” he whispered, afraid that any sudden movement would send her away. Afraid that any noise would shatter the beautiful illusion that they had somehow been blessed with.

“It’s me,” she whispered back, her words barely making it past her lips before tears began to well in her eyes. 

They stood silently in front of one another for another long moment, their eyes raking over one another’s faces, checking to see if they were truly there. The air was filling with static electricity, but neither of them could bring themselves to break it just yet.

“Orpheus —” she started, only to be cut off by his broken voice; “Eurydice.”

They didn’t know who moved first, but they surged together, him cradling the back of her head as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She threaded one hand through his hair, the other gripping onto the fabric of his shirt. He wrapped a long arm around her waist, holding her close to him, as he finally took in the breath he had been waiting for, for over seventy years. Tears flowed from his eyes, and he pressed them tightly shut.

She pressed her face against his cheek, holding him so tightly, trying to remove any instance of space between them. She was crying now, her relief bubbling over. _He was here, her Orpheus was finally here with her_. 

“Orpheus,” she said through her tears, desperate to fall deep into those blue eyes she had missed so much, but which he wouldn’t open. She shifted her face and pressed a kiss to each of his eye lids, which softly fluttered beneath her lips. “You can look at me, my love. I’m not going anywhere.”

She leaned her forehead against his, and his eyes slowly opened, and there they were. He took her breath away, even after all these years. Looking into his eyes, she felt the weight of the mines lift off her shoulder. She felt like, were he not holding onto her, she would simply float away.

“Eurydice, I —“ Orpheus could barely form words, so busy drinking in the sight of his lover, of his long-lost wife who had found him again. “You waited.”

She laughed, a soft, light thing, and nodded, brushing a tear away from his eye. “Of course I did.” And with that, she leaned in, pressed her mouth against his, and sealed their fate.

In their kiss, she realised that nothing had ever been broken, nothing had died. They had only been sleeping for seventy years. The fire within their hearts was only waiting for an exhale of oxygen to come roaring to life again. He lifted her into his arms and she wrapped her legs around him, squeezing him impossibly closer, as their lips danced against each other in ways that they never truly thought they’d get to again. Their hearts beat in tandem, and they felt a slight _click_ as everything slid home, slid into place. 

Their tears still fell, a mixture of release and relief, and just a cosmic understanding of right-ness mingling on their cheeks, on their lips, on their chin. When they broke apart, it was only because they needed to look at each other again. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered to him, placing a hand on his face, brushing her thumb against his cheekbone. 

“You haven’t changed a bit. My beautiful wife,” he whispered, pressing his nose against hers. She smiled and kissed him again, this one just as searing as the last. Hermes and Persephone watched their embrace from opposite sides of the platform. Hermes let out a sigh of relief. Everything that Persephone had dealt with in terms of Eurydice, Hermes had handled with Orpheus — the drinking, the grief, the anger, all of it. The gods could finally breathe easy, knowing that the cosmos had been set right, that the lovers who had triggered the seasons again were finally reunited.

Eurydice pulled away from his lips, but only briefly. He tried to follow her lips, didn’t want to let her go, but she placed her hands on either side of his face, holding him as if he was the most precious thing she had ever seen. He was.

“Come home with me,” she said, unable to keep her own unbridled joy within her anymore. He smiled at her, lighting up her world all over again. She unwrapped her legs from around his waist and he put her down. She took his hand and turned to look at Persephone. The goddess was leaning against the door frame watching them, holding Orpheus’ lyre in one hand. She smiled and raised her eye brows.

“We ready to head down?” She said and Orpheus squeezed Eurydice’s fingers and nodded. The four of them stepped onto the train, ready to make the journey. 

While all Eurydice wanted to do was curl up in her poet’s lap, sink into his embrace and feel his arms around her, she settled for sitting next to him. Their arms and legs pressed together. His left hand lay flat out on his knee, palm up, and she slid their fingers together. It took her no time at all to see something dull and metallic on one of his fingers.

“What’s this?” she asked softly, leaning her head on his shoulder. He clasped their fingers together and turned over their hands.

“I had it made out of your old flask — I hope you don’t mind. I wanted something to show people that I was married.” He leaned his head on hers and kissed her hair. 

She squeezed his hand, and breathed another sigh of relief. She didn’t truly comprehend how much stress she had been carrying, how much fear. “You told people about me?” She asked, and she felt more than heard his chuckle.

“He wouldn’t shut up about you!” She heard Persephone shout from a few rows ahead, where she was laid out across a bench. “You were part of every conversation. ‘my wife this,’ and ‘my wife that’ and, ‘oh back me up Persephone, doesn’t she just have the most _beautiful_ eyes?’” Eurydice laughed at that and burrowed further into Orpheus’ side. She didn’t need to look to see that he was blushing.

“You were no better, Songbird!” Persephone laughed, and it was Eurydice’s turn to blush. Orpheus wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they turned to look at Persephone. She pressed her back against his chest, and he wrapped one arm around her, holding her closer. 

“You moped about for _years_. ‘I miss my poet’, ‘I wish Orpheus were here’, and ‘oh Persephone, how much longer until I can see my lover?’”

“You asked about me?” Orpheus said, looking down at her with stars in his eyes. She nodded, looking over her shoulder at him. “Of course I did. I asked about you every year.”

“Even after what…” he struggled to say the thing she knew he was going to bring up at one point or another. “Even after what I did to you?”

“Lover, you didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” she said to him, squeezing his arms. She turned in his arms and reached with one hand to guide his chin, so that he was looking right at her. “We both fucked up, Orpheus. We both did stupid shit, made choices, and we spent the last seventy years paying for it. But we’re here, now. _Together_.”

“Are we?” Orpheus asked, hesitation in his voice. Eurydice nodded and ran her fingers along his jawline. 

“Hades broke my contract — I’m free.” He exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned their foreheads against each others. He stopped caring about what was appropriate at that point, and shifted Eurydice onto his lap, her knees on either side of his legs. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close, as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, resting her head in the crook of his neck. They sat in silence for a moment, before Orpheus softly began to sing. 

_“Say that you’ll hold me forever. Say that the winds won’t change on us. Say that we’ll stay with each other, and that it will always be like this.”_

She squeezed him impossibly tighter, taking in a shaking breath, and he responded in kind. _Gods_ , she thought, _I missed his voice._

_“I’m gonna hold you forever,”_ she sang back quietly, feeling his intake of breath, and his arms hold her closer. _“The winds will never change on us. As long as we stay with each other, it will always be like this.”_

 

_***_

 

The rest of the train ride down followed in the same vein — Eurydice curled up with Orpheus, Orpheus curled up around Eurydice. Hermes and Persephone sneaking glances to one another. But as they approached Hadestown, Hermes walked over to the lovers, dozing in each other’s arms.

“Eurydice,” He said, just loud enough to snap her out of her sleepiness. She perked up a little, listening. “This is your stop.” Hermes watched her grip on Orpheus shirt, and his grip on her waist, tighten.

“What do you mean ‘my stop’?” She asked, her voice trying to hide a quiver. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”   


“Wherever she is, is where I’ll go,” Orpheus echoed her sentiment. 

“What my brother is trying to say,” Persephone said, pushing past Hermes, “Is that Eurydice needs to collect her things. And then back on the train — onwards.”

Orpheus relaxed slightly, pressing a kiss to her hair. The moment of terror that she would be taken away had left his heart beating quickly, and he could feel Eurydice’s heart beating at the same pace.

She nodded and stood up, his arms releasing her, but not totally willingly. She reached out and grabbed his hand, which he took without question. “He’s coming with me,” she told Persephone and Hermes. “I’m not letting him go.”

“We weren’t asking you to,” Persephone winked at her, and opened the door of the train. “Lets go grab your things, and we’ll be back soon. Go on, lovebirds.” Orpheus followed Hermes off the train, his fingers still intertwined with Eurydice’s as they walked though what must have been Hadestown. It was nothing like he remembered it. 

When he was here last, it was an angry place, made up of sharp lines and angry walls. People’s eyes were empty, and heat sat in the air like weights. He remembered walking the wall that was now nowhere to be found, and finding his lover. He remembered the feeling of neon and fire on his back as he turned to walk away. He remembered this place as a space of death, and a reminder of the fatal mistake he made seventy years ago.

“Orpheus?” He heard Eurydice’s voice break through the memories. She was now a step ahead of him, and he realised that he had stopped walking. He had tears in his eyes. “Come on,” she said, squeezing his hand and smiling at him. “We’re not too far now.” He shook the memories from his head, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.

Eurydice’s apartment was small — just big enough for her, really. She explained that the King and Queen had offered her different, bigger spaces, but she said that she declined them. Sometimes people fell in love down here. They needed more space than she did. When they entered her apartment, which was more like a glorified dormitory, Eurydice removed herself from her lovers side, going to grab the small case she had stashed away. She popped it open on the bed and began putting her few items into her case — her old, ratty coat. One of his bandanas that was now threadbare and worn — no doubt brought to her by Persephone. A notebook or two.

“How long have you lived here?” Orpheus asked in a quiet voice, afraid to break whatever atmosphere loomed around them. The bed was small, barely big enough for one person. The sheets were thin. There was a chair, but it didn’t look comfortable. She wanted rest, she wanted a home. This wasn’t it.

“For most of my time,” she responded, clipping the case shut. “I roomed with a few other workers for a while — about twenty years. But I had a bit of an incident, and Persephone moved me here, told me I needed my own space.”

“An incident?” He asked, confused. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, sitting down on the bed beside the case. She nodded and bit her lip.

“Eurydice, you don’t need to talk about it if you do—”

“I kept getting reckless in the mines,” she admitted. “I was drinking, a lot at first. And then it got better… and then it got worse. I was working myself too hard. There was a cave that was dangerous, and I knew it wasn’t safe. It was on the brink of a collapse, and…” she took a breath. She wrung her hands in her lap, trying to find the words to describe how she wanted nothing but death at that point in her life. She wanted to make everything go dark and numb, and to fade away. 

“I could hear you singing in the back of my mind, and I thought that I could make it go away,” she finally said, looking up into his eyes with tears in hers. They were threatening to spill, these big tears filled with so much fear and sorrow. “I could hear you singing, and I didn’t think I could handle it for another lifetime. I wanted it to stop so badly, because it hurt too much. It hurt so much —”

Her words broke off into a cry, and he crossed the space so quickly, pulling her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and dug her fingers into his shoulders, forcing their bodies closer together.

“I’m here,” he whispered to her. “Eurydice, I’m here now, and I’m never going away again.” She had told him he had done nothing wrong, but he knew she was wrong, and he could see it now — see just how much he had forced her to endure. She had spent seventy years working and waiting, with the reminder of what he had done to her rattling around in her head. He wanted to kiss away the pain, wanted to promise her that he would never let her go, wanted to soothe her mind until all of the bad memories went away. But he couldn’t do that. No, he had done what he had done, and he had forced Eurydice to endure a lifetime of shit, of trauma, of agony. He had gotten to walk free, but at the cost of her condemnation. 

“Please don’t go,” she sobbed against his shoulder, her body shaking hard as she forced out words drenched in an acidic vulnerability. She anchored one of her hands in his hair and used every atom in her body to keep him beside her. “Please don’t leave, I can’t do it again.”

Orpheus pulled back and cupped her face in his hands, pressed their foreheads together. “I’m not going anywhere, Eurydice. I’m here, _for good_ , and I’m never leaving you again. I’m so sorry for what I did, and I’ll spend the rest of forever making it up to you.” She was looking at him, nodding, her lip still quivering as she cried. “I messed up and I’ll never stop being sorry. But I’m _here. Now._ And I’m never leaving again.”

He kissed her hard, and she kissed back. Gone was the gentleness that they had on the platform. This was the aftershock — the pain after the high. She was scared and so was he, and gods he never wanted any of this to happen. Their kiss was all hard lips and deep breaths, but there was not an ounce of lust in the air between them. It was a reminder that they were _together_ and that he was here, under her hands, within reach.

After a moment, he pulled away and she followed his lips with her own, a soft and broken ‘no’ escaping her mouth. His heart broke at that sound, and he kissed her forehead and shushed her softly, pulling her in closer until she was sitting on his lap. They both had tears that needed to be shed, and had no words left to exchange. She cried into his shirt, he into her hair. His heart broke for her, and her tears shifted from fear to sheer relief. They would talk, they had all the time in the world to talk. But they had mourned each other, had grieved one another. They needed time to process.

Orpheus had spent the last seventy years coping with a burning feeling of hatred that blossomed in his chest whenever he thought about Eurydice. He had been the one to turn. He hadn’t had faith strong enough. But he would be who she needed him to be. He would be there for her for the rest of time. He needed to be — he owed it her. To them. 

It took a while, but soon their tears stopped flowing, and they looked up at one another. They laughed softly upon meeting each others eyes, as they felt like a weight had been lifted, and their hearts were just a little bit less heavy. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. And then to the space between her brows, and then all over her face. He kissed her eyelids and her cheeks until he won a giggle from her lips. It had been so long since she laughed, she thought. Once he had stopped, she took over and pressed soft, flitting kisses across the bridge of his nose, and along his temple.

Slowly, she climbed off of his lap and grabbed her case. He took it from her, and intertwined their fingers together. She clung onto his arm, and he squeezed her hand with reassurance. They left the apartment, not looking back.

It would be a long train ride to a place where neither had ever been before. It would be a long walk to their new home, a cottage that reminded them enough of their old home to inspire a little nostalgia, but not enough that it made them sad to look at. It would be there that Orpheus would learn about what had happened to Hadestown. He would hold Eurydice as she recalled the feelings of fear, hatred, anger, and stinging love that she had dealt with in the last seventy years. It would be there that she would hold Orpheus as he told her about his life up top. About the music he made and the changes he’d seen. About the years he spent self medicating, unable to sing or play, or sleep because he was constantly reminded of what fate he had doomed her to. It would be there that they would make amends, would forgive one another and repeat their apologies until they fell on deaf ears.

Persephone had accompanied them with Hermes, waiting until they were safely in their new home before returning to Hadestown and to her husband. Before she left, she slipped Eurydice the stack of letters that Orpheus had written her years ago. And she wrapped both lovers in her arms and squeezed them tight, promising to visit.

And then she left them to their own devices. Left them on their own, to start their lives. They were two entirely new creatures, who had truly never known each other in this lifetime. But they had always known each other, and they always would. The road back to each other was long, and winding. The skies would not always be clear. But they knew they would walk that path together. They had all the time in the world to make it home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and i'm sorry about the angst.  
> As always, i'm on tumblr @ivegotaheadlineforyou and am always looking for prompts, headcanons, or just generally people to scream about hadestown with. Feel free to message me!
> 
> More fluff coming soon, promise xx.


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